Big Storytime Question #1

Well, my boss and I survived our ALSC presentation on Saturday and it was a lot of fun. As part of our session, we had attendees write short answers to questions about storytime we had put on the wall on that big sticky chart paper. I appreciated everyone who participated in this and stepped forward to share their thoughts, because I love listening to people talk about storytime. And I wanted to hear what you would have written if you were there too! So this week I’m going to be posting our questions, and can’t wait to hear what your answers are!

Our first question:

Why does your library have storytime?

Go!

[update, 9/24 evening] PS. I’m a nut. I sent this to post before I could add in the answers from the group. Thanks to everyone who added comments already! Here’s what folks at the session had to say:

To help get children ready to start school
To open a world of imagination
Children are future patrons/taxpayers
To help youngsters learn interaction with others/school prep
Start love of library and reading [at] early age
Encourage library users
Get kids ready for school
Encourage kids and parents to use the library together and read together
As part of Outreach–as a service to the community
Why not?
Start (or continue) kids’ love of books, language, etc.
Early literacy modeled for parents
Print motivation
To help parents understand their role as their child’s first teacher
To grow lifelong library users/lovers
Make learning fun
Early literacy/reason we exist